TAIPING, June 8 — Employers who have yet to register or pay their employees’ contributions under the Social Security Organisation scheme have a month-long grace period to get their house in order before facing the consequences.
Human Resource Minister M. Kulasegaran said Socso will launch a nationwide campaign to hunt down those who have failed to register or pay contributions in August, after a ‘cooling off’ period in July.
As of December 2017, there are 6.8 million active workers nationwide working for 435,801 employers registered under Socso.
However, 10 per cent of registered employers have yet to register their employees under the scheme.
“We want employers to register their workers and pay the necessary contributions to prevent legal action,” Kulasegaran told reporters today, after handing over Socso contributions to a local family here today.
Kulasegaran said some employers had failed to register their workers because their businesses were not doing well.
However, he stressed that this was not an acceptable excuse.
“We don’t see them paying double contributions when their businesses are doing well,” Kulasegaran pointed out.
To solve the problem, the Ipoh Barat MP urged employers to come forward and engage Socso and the ministry instead of waiting for action to be taken.
“We don’t want to drag them to court and put them in jail. What does that achieve?
“I urge them to come forward and engage us so we can see what we can do to help them,” he said.
Socso’s records state that 1,544 employers nationwide have yet to register their companies under the scheme in 2017.
In 2016, the number stood at 1,608, which was an increase from 2015’s figure of 1,464.
Failure to register under Socso is an offence under the Employees’ Social Security Act 1969, and offenders can face up to RM5,000 in compounds, in addition to further prosecution.
Earlier, Kulasegaran handed over Perkeso contributions to the family of bus driver Shuaib KK Mohamed Unny, who was tragically killed in an accident in Johor on June 3.
Shuaib, who had been working as a bus driver for 17 years, was one of three people killed in the collision with a container lorry.
Kulasegaran said the late Shuaib’s family would be getting a RM 1,450 monthly pension from Socso, representing 90 per cent of his salary.
The minister also instructed Socso to speed up the payment process to help the family during this trying time.
